Music — Consumed

2021 · Gaspard Augé

Escapades strips away the guitar-influenced crunch of Justice to reveal Augé's pure synth craftsmanship. The production here is patient, almost luxurious, letting analog warmth and melodic development breathe across tracks that clock in well past the five-minute mark. There's a clear lineage to French touch pioneers like Air and Daft Punk's slower work, but Augé pushes into more cinematic territory, building tension through layered arpeggios and careful dynamic control rather than the filter sweeps and compression that defined his previous work.

The album functions as a showcase for synth programming that actually sounds tactile. You can hear the knob-twisting and patch-building, the way he stacks voices to create these massive, moving textures. Tracks like "Force Majeure" and "Captain" demonstrate his understanding of how to build and release energy without relying on the drop structures that dominate electronic music. It's more interested in groove and atmosphere than peak moments.

What makes this compelling is how Augé translates the French touch aesthetic into something that works for extended listening rather than dancefloor impact. The album has a cohesive sonic palette but avoids repetition through careful attention to arrangement and structure. It's the sound of a producer who's spent decades refining his craft, now free to explore ideas without the constraints of collaboration or genre expectations.